She looked up to see Lord Daniel hovering awkwardly nearby, twisting his hands about.
“I wondered…” he began, his voice rather high, before he coughed and began again in a more normal tone. “I wondered if perhaps… if you are not otherwise engaged… if I might secure your hand for the Cotillion after supper.”
A second dance! Oh, such joy! She stammered her acceptance, he smiled with obvious pleasure, bowed and walked away, leaving her in a glow of happiness.
8: Disappointment
Simon was enchanted with Miss Sophia Merrington. The night of the ball was, perhaps, the first occasion in his existence when he had tried to put himself in another person’s shoes, to see as she saw, to feel as she felt, and it was a revelation.
From the moment when she had declared herself to be his friend, he had felt a heightening of interest in her. That, after all, was how one treated a friend, was it not? One took an interest in their affairs, and so it was with Miss Merrington. She looked forward to the ball, and so he began to look forward to it, too. She wanted to dance all night, and thus he wanted that for her. And when he first saw her face that evening, a little flushed with excitement, eyes sparkling with anticipation, her hair arranged in a charmingly elaborate style for the occasion and her gown… there was something magical about a ball gown, its sole purpose to add a swirl of soft movement to every step its wearer takes. He could not wait to begin drawing her.
As the evening wore away, he followed her about with his sketch book, attempting to fix the lively motions of the dancein simple pencil strokes. How hard it was! The poses of her arms, the precision of her steps, the constant changes — all so difficult to capture in one frozen moment. He was never satisfied. If he managed her hands accurately, her feet were out of alignment, and if the feet were right, the gown was all wrong, and her face—! Those glorious expressions that flitted across her features and were instantly gone. How on earth was he to distil such splendour into mere drawings? Impossible! Yet he was compelled to try.
But as he sat in bed the next morning, the multitude of sketches laid out on the covers around him, he recalled one expression in particular, when the young man — she had called him Lord Daniel — had claimed a second dance. He had no chance of capturing it with his pencil, but there was something in her face at that moment that he had never seen in her before, something endearing but frightening, too. He could only describe it as‘hope’.She had been given hope, and in that instant he saw her whole life laid bare, a life of waiting, endlessly waiting for that one man to come along and ask for a second dance, with all its implications. Perhaps nothing would come of it, but he could see the thought in her head as clearly as if she had spoken the words —‘if he likes me enough to dance with me a second time, perhaps he will like me enough to fall in love… to marry me’.
As her friend, he should be hoping for such an outcome for her too, but his heart was not in it, somehow. He could not quite explain it, even to himself, but he was not at all satisfied with the idea of her marrying Lord Daniel. He was younger than she was, for one thing, and… well, obviously he was not right for her. Just why this was so, he could not say. He simply knew it, in some unfathomable way.
So when Juliet came bustling in, in her inimitable way, fully dressed already and chiding him as a lazy slug, he was not minded to be charitable.
“Leave me alone, Juliet. I am not feeling energetic this morning.”
“But you should be, after such a successful evening. Even without dancing, you managed to be attentive to Sophia Merrington the whole night, sitting out the supper dance with her and then taking her in to supper. Well? How is it going? She must be well on the way to falling in love with you by now.”
He could only laugh at such optimism. “Oh, it is as simple as that, is it? I pay attention to her, talk to her for half an hour and feed her lobster patties, and she will just fall into my hands.”
Juliet rolled her eyes. “Simon, how many times must I explain it to you? She is twenty-eight years old, with no fewer than three older sisters still unwed. She will fall at the feet of any man who shows an interest.”
“She would have to be desperate indeed to fall atmyfeet,” he said, but smiling as he spoke. “Be realistic, sister.”
“You are not so ineligible, brother. You are the son of an earl, after all.”
“For whatthatis worth,” he said harshly. “Juliet, I am penniless, entirely dependent on you to survive, and although I have a profession, of a sort, it has not brought me very much money. Precisely two hundred pounds, in fact, for those stables in Gloucestershire, and that was a higher than usual fee as a favour to Kendle. We have eaten my entire income long since. Or burnt it, perhaps. Coal is so expensive.”
“Pft! What is that to the purpose? She will have two and a half thousand from her brother, and the duke is bound to give her something extra. We shall manage very well on that until you are established in your career.”
“That just makes me the worst kind of fortune hunter. Even if I liked her, it would be dishonourable in me to offer for her when I have not a feather to fly with.”
“But youdolike her,” Juliet said slyly. “Do not deny it, for I can see it with my own eyes.”
“Dishonourable,” he said firmly. “Beyond the pale. Unprincipled. Contemptible. Shameful. Despicable.”
She gave a bark of laughter. “Yes, yes, yes, I know. Men do it all the time, despite these protestations, and do their wives regret it? No, they do not. Just a little more effort, brother dear, and you may secure Miss Merrington… or one of her sisters, if you prefer. I am quite easy on the matter. There is nothing to choose between them. Just secure one of them, that is all I ask.”
“There are some serious heiresses here,” he said. “I wonder you do not set your sights on a girl with twenty thousand.”
“Let us not get over-ambitious. The rich ones all have fathers who would not take kindly to a son-in-law with pockets to let, but Richard Merrington will be glad to dispose of one of his sisters, I assure you. His mother says that he grumbles constantly about the expense. He will get his wife to wheedle money out of the duke, for she is wondrous great with him, and then you will be able to live in comfort until you make your name.”
“You have it all worked out,” Simon said disconsolately, seeing that she would not be deterred.
“So I have, and my arrangements always work out for the best. Have I not always looked after you, Simon? All that is needed is for you to do precisely as I say, and all will be well. Now, get out of bed, for the sun is up and so are the Merrington ladies, and you are just wasting the day.”
“I do not know why you are so set on me marrying,” he said, with a burst of anger. “We are quite happy as we are, just the two of us. When I have made my name — that will be the time for meto look about me for a wife, and one with more than two and a half thousand, too. What is the great rush?”
“Simon, I am heartily tired of being poor!” she said with asperity. “With a wife who brings a little money to the table, we could be a trifle less poor.”
“Only until the children come along and then we should be considerably poorer, and a house full of bawling infants is hardly conducive to my work. It is madness, Juliet. We may not have much money to spare, but with Mama’s little gifts and your annuity—”
“What annuity?” she spat.
